MUKAMA YEBAZIBWE (PRAISE THE LORD)

Hello!!!!!!

You guys Africa is crazy.

CRRRAAAAZZZZZZYYYYYYYY.

God is MOVING and it’s so cool to be apart of it and see it for my own eyes.

Ok it’s been a couple weeks since you’ve heard from me SO LET ME UPDATE YOU ON ALL THINGS UGANDA!!!!!

So we landed in Entebbe at about 1 am on the 17th of December and went to our house in Mityana! That was where we stayed for the first week and a half ish until we moved to our more permanent home!!! In Mityana, we had a pretty big group of YWAM Kona people there with us because we stayed with the other 2 Uganda teams. Each team had their own house and I hadn’t expected the houses to be super nice but it was surprisingly really cool!! Our house had 3 rooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom! It was still small so fitting 14 people in was a little rough.

Our time in Mityana was filled with lots of prayer and worship. My leader, Caroline, felt like we needed to spend some time getting our hearts in the right place before we’re ministering all day every day! So we spent the first week in our house pretty much all day. We took a break on the worship/intercession burn to go to one of the highest security prisons in Uganda and minister. Which was actually pretty funny because we were all expecting it to be super intense but we walked in and they were in the middle of a church service…. So much joy and freedom in their faces while they worshipped with their whole heart. We shared testimonies and preached and got to pray over some of the prisoners! Such a cool dayyyy!!!!! I think we saw about 20-30 salvations! But the coolest part was seeing how much these prisoners love the Lord! I feel like they did more ministry than we did…:)

So now I am in Mubende! My team is staying at our contact Pastor Charles’ missionary home! Again, we were expecting a typical rural African home but it is quite the opposite. There is a HUGE beautiful gate and a HUGE beautiful yard. We have just about the prettiest view ever. The house looks out at a valley with mountains in the distance. As soon as you get through the gate, you can feel the presence of God. So much peace and joy and love. Our house is SO nice! The boys and girls are on two separate sides of the house… each with our own bathroom, praise God.

We really hit the ground running as soon as we got to Mubende. We started with a 3 day crusade and then a prayer overnight going into the new year. Crusades always start with a lot of dancing and worshipping. But it’s African worship so it’s super hype and crazy. After what seems like hours and hours of dancing, my team gets on stage to share some of our worship, which is always so awkward because we just got done dancing and screaming and going crazy and then it’s a bunch of white people singing with just a guitar. Still trying to figure out a good way to keep the Africans engaged during our worship time. :) After our worship we usually have 1-2 people share their testimony! Then we have someone preach! We all were supposed to prepare 2 sermons to give when we are at church or a crusade. This past Sunday I got to preach at church and it was so cool! Got to tell lots of people about my mom and what God has done in my life through losing her. I have also gotten to lead worship which has been so fun! :)

We just finished our second crusade a couple days ago! We went to a village about 25 minutes away and were able to see God really move. Before we head to the village for the crusade we try to spend at least a couple hours in worship and intercession as a team. On our last day in this village, we were praying that house churches would be planted, and that God would continue to change the hearts of the people living there. AND GUESS WHAT! When we got to the crusade, there was a family on stage who was sharing that they are starting a church in their home. From this crusade alone, we saw 76 salvations!! GOD IS SO GOOD!

As I write this, we are on an off day. Which means we have the whole day to chill and relax before jumping into another week of ministry all day every day. We are starting our third crusade tomorrow!! Life has been so busy here but it’s been so good. We are all totally sleep deprived, running on about 4-5 hours of sleep each night. But even throughout the exhaustion I am so proud of how my team has been choosing a joyful and thankful heart.

That is one big thing my team has been focusing on a lot while being here. I think sometimes we all do such a good job of looking at the darkness, and focusing on the bad things. Being in Uganda at the crusades, it has been very easy to focus on what the devil is trying to do. It is so easy to focus on who isn’t engaged, and asking ourselves why we’re here. Why isn’t God using us? What are we doing wrong? Why didn’t this person get healed? Why didn’t this person receive freedom? Where are the people who need to be saved? Even back home!! The enemy tries to distract us from what God is doing in the smallest ways. Whether that is as small as a little insecurity that you’re always thinking about, or something bigger like finances. Why do we do that though?? Why do we so easily let the devil take our attention like that? I HAVE GOOD NEWS!!!!!! GOD IS GOOD! AND POWERFUL! AND FAITHFUL! Why do we let the enemy take our attention when we serve God. Clouds are the dust of His feet, hills melt in His presence, mountains quake before Him. In Psalm 146 it says

“Blessed is he whose help is in the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them- the Lord, who remains faithful forever. He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.”

Psalm 146: 5-9

I think one of the most powerful things I am learning while in Uganda is just how powerful God really is. I have seen people healed of serious sicknesses and serious injuries, and I have seen people set free from YEARS of bondage from the devil. The kind of torment that we read about in the Bible. SERIOUS LEGIT STUFF! But even through all of the power and goodness I see for other people and hear about for other people, I still question His goodness in my own life! HOW DUMB IS THAT! I know I’m not the only one too…:) It is so easy to see how God is moving in other peoples lives but then when it comes to OUR finances, or OUR family, or OUR stuff we question His goodness. We question His faithfulness. In the African culture, passivity is huge. Driving around town, every person you see is just standing/sitting around. Our translators tell us that people have conversations about the same thing all day long, every single day. In trying to break that bit of culture, we have been focusing a lot on the importance of lordship, and surrender. You guys there is so much fruit to be produced when you surrender everything! We know that God is faithful, we know that He is good, so let’s give him FULL CONTROL over those things that we question His goodness in. God’s got it. When we don’t give him control over absolutely everything in our lives, that’s pretty much saying you think you can do it better. You think you can handle it better, your way is better than God’s. And cmon we all know that’s not true!!!

OK THIS IS SO COOL. Literally in the middle of typing all of this out, and my team gathered to do some bible reading. We’re reading through Matthew right now and God highlighted this passage to share with you all. Goes perfectly with what I’m talking about!! In Matthew 16, Jesus is hinting and predicting his death to his disciples. This is what God highlighted as we were reading Matthew this morning.

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Matthew 16: 24-28

This goes to show how important surrender is to Jesus!! If we truly want to follow him, we need to deny ourselves and take up our cross. We need to give Him FULL. CONTROL. We are getting so much joy, peace, and freedom stolen from us when we don’t give everything to Jesus!

I have already learned so much while being in Uganda and I’ve only been here for 3 weeks!! I am so expectant for what God’s going to do during these next 2 months. There has been so much that He has spoken to us about this trip. I AM SO EXCITED! GOD IS SO GOOD! I am learning so much about Him and what it looks like to have a real intimate relationship with him. I promise I will update you as often as I can! Being in Africa kind of limits my service and my wifi connections but I will do my best!!

God is so good. I can’t say it enough.

HE LOVES YOU SO MUCH!!!!!

I hope that as I spend more time in Uganda and spend more time blogging you’ll be able to feel like you’re learning with me!! I will try to post new pictures and videos with you as well!! One of my main goals with this blog was to update you obviously, but to share what I'm learning and hopefully be able to teach some of you as well! God is moving in big ways and I am so excited to share that with you all!!

Siiba bulungi!! Which means have a nice day!! Haha I'm working on my Lugandan.

ok bye talk soon

-jam